A celebration of the past while looking to the future. The first day of the Taormina Film Festival opens with great Italian comedybetween big names and young talents who yesterday evening at the Teatro Antico, with the Nastri d’Argento awards, inaugurated a historic edition, the seventieth, directed by Marco Müller.
“Looking at the history of the festival and its birth in an open-air arena in Messina in 1955 (L’Irrera al Mare, ed.) you understand that it was strong when it opened with the Nastri d’argento – Müller said in a press conference – . So I thought that to retrace the history of the festival we had to convince the National Union of Italian Film Journalists to return to Taormina, once again launching a ceremony that had always created a beautiful moment of transgression between Italian and international cinema. This should be the strength of Taormina today”.
An important signal therefore is the presence of the Nastri and above all of the “kings of comedy” Christian De Sica and Carlo Verdone, on the cinematographic scene with hundreds of films to their credit, and strongly representative of the list of honours that Film Journalists have dedicated to comedy for a good 15 years.
With their typical sympathy and comic verve, the two artists, who had received the first awards of their careers in Taormina – De Sica as revelation of the year for Paolo Nuzzi’s «Giovannino» (1976) and Verdone for his cult debut «Un sacco bello» (1980) – present themselves as former high school classmates, united by a barter on Latin and Greek homework, in a period in which cinema was not part of their life plans. But with two giants like Vittorio De Sica and Mario Verdone behind them, the choice became almost obligatory.
“I want to dedicate this award to comic actors who, like me, have been subjected to harsh criticism for years by some journalists,” De Sica said, “and I thank the Union for thinking of us, who are also brothers-in-law.”
And about the long-announced project of the film «I due cognati», Verdone replies: «We have to hurry because we are veterans!». «Getting a Nastro after 40 years of career is nice – he continues –. Praise always helps to stimulate creativity, it is a frustration for creativity».
In addition to the last two seasons of the series «Vita da Carlo», Verdone has announced his return to the cinema with a new film. De Sica will return at Christmas with the comedy «Cortina Express» and will shoot a film adaptation of the novel «I Fannulloni» by Marco Lodoli. Two different ways of making comedy, but the same careful, critical, ironic look at the vices and virtues of the average Italian, and for both, a look at the past, at the cult comedy of Totò and Fabrizi; but also of Tognazzi, Manfredi, Villaggio, cornerstones of the history of Italian comedy, to be made known to the new generations.
Looking at the present with Ribbon to Giovanni Veronesi for having relaunched the romantic comedy in his “Romeo is Juliet”. The Tuscan director was awarded together with Pilar Fogliati and Maurizio Lombardi, best comedy actors of the year. The eleventh Nino Manfredi Award – promoted by the Union with the family of the great Ciociaro actor and presented by his son Luca (director) – to the amazing Emanuela Fanelli for “C’è ancora domani” by Paola Cortellesi and to Claudio Bisio for his directorial debut with the touching story about the Shoah “L’ultima volta che siamo stati bambini”. Manfredi’s last public appearance in Taormina was screened, one day before returning to Rome and falling ill. The great actor said: “I won’t be there next year, but you keep coming”.
Special Ribbon to Giuseppe Tornatorewho opened yesterday evening with a special video contribution (he will be at the festival on July 20), recalling his connection with Taormina and the Nastri: he won his first Nastro as an emerging director for «Il camorrista» in 1987 and in Taormina he announced the making of «Baaria». Recognitions also went to Margherita Buy, star of several successful comedies, who this year made her directorial debut with the film «Volare», and to Luca Barbareschi, director, producer and main actor of «The Penitent», a criticism of political correctness and the negative sides of journalism, written by the great American playwright David Mamet.
Between cinema and seriality the Ribbon to the actor from Palermo Alessio Vassallo as the protagonist of the Palomar fiction based on Camilleri’s novels, and in theaters from July 18 with the comedy “Investigation of a Love Story” by Gianluca Maria Tavarelli, or love in the time of reality shows. “I’m very happy that comedy is being celebrated,” said Vassallo. “Camilleri claimed that this genre is scary because it puts us in front of the mirror, because you can tolerate everything, but not that people laugh at you and your misfortunes.”
Always a combination of small and big screen with the Guglielmo Biraghi Award to Beatrice Grannò («Doc – Nelle tue mani» and the second season of «The White Lotus», filmed in Taormina), and to Nicolas Maupas («Mare fuori», «Un professore»).